Pen and Ink

Where the snowflake falls.

I've been thinking a lot in the past year about why things happen the way they do. The people we meet. The circumstances in which we find themselves.

And most importantly, what we take away from those things.

For 17 years years I was in a relationship with a wonderful man. But it ended last summer for a whole bunch of reasons. It was my decision, but happily, the split is amicable and we remain good friends. We're actually still living peacefully under the same roof.

My life has changed dramatically in the last 11 months. Some wonderful new people have entered my life, and others, having been off-stage for awhile, have reentered.

And I've started dating. 

Jack I met online while in Chicago. Ours was (and is), with the exception of a couple of hours in a coffee shop in Boystown, an online and telephone relationship. Intense, smart, playful, revealing, hysterical.  "We" were not meant to be, but we remain really good friends. If we lived in the same city we'd be hanging out with great frequency.

Brian I had known for a couple of years, both online and in person. We dated for four months, but kept it very casual, with neither of us looking for a major commitment.

Todd, likewise, I met online.  We spent three, truly fun months together, but we were both in different places in our lives and he was not ready to be in a relationship.

Lastly, there was Paul. We spent two months cruising each other at work, knowing nothing but each other's names and departments. Finally, after bumping into him one Tuesday, followed by having two different people mention his name to me within days, I took it all as a sign and invited him for coffee. Which quicly led to an official date. It lasted a month, but ended when he woke up realizing that he could not use me to get over a past relationship that was still troubling him.  To his credit, he told me about this when we first met, so it was no surprise when he called, and I respect him for his honesty.

Being single for the first time in 17 years, and awakening to many new things in the past year, I've been very reflective about these men and other aspects of my life.

Truly, I have come to believe that people come into our lives for a reason.

Jack, very importantly, showed me that there was another human being out there with whom I could connect in meaningful ways.  Brian taught me how to enjoy sex again. Todd, who is eight years younger than I, showed me how to let loose and have fun. (He even made me buy what he calls "hot sexy boy jeans" for when we would go clubbing. The kind with rips.  Me...ripped jeans! What the hell is happening to me?).

Paul...well, I'm not sure yet why Paul came into my life. Our romantic relationship ended much too quickly, in my opinion. But he's left the door open to dating again, just not right now. So it remains to be seen exactly what role he plays. Perhaps I was meant to show him that he's not ready for a boyfriend.

Why am I revealing all of this? I'm guess I'm just reflecting on people and situations. Finding the beauty in what happens to us, taking away the lessons to be learned.

My friend Melissa told me the other day about a card she received, one that she keeps posted on her refrigerator. It says, "No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."

I live in South Florida, but the snow's been great this year.

Something different.

Have you ever heard of Maria Friedman?

My first tell-tale sign of gayness-to-come was an instant love of the musical theater. I was in the seventh grade and saw Godspell, quickly followed by The Magic Show (during the Broadway dominance by Stephen Schwartz). The rest is history.

However, I've never been a theater geek. There are those who follow every casting move, every note written by composers, every subtle nuance of the theater world. That's not me. I've never even traveled to London to indulge myself in the offerings there.

So until recently, I had never heard of Maria Friedman. From what I gather, she's a London stage actress. She had her Broadway debut this past season and garnered some attention when she was diagnosed with breast cancer during her run on Broadway, and to her credit, continued her performances.

I only know of her because she was in a filmed, quasi-stage version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond (who is probably not suited for much more than the role of Joseph). She played the Narrator, the character who keeps the whole show together. (The film is also interesting because it has Joan Collins as Potiphar's wife. Funny, she looks like Alexis.)

In the role, she was just OK. She had a nice presence and the medium of film is better able to capture facial experssions often missed when seeing the production live. The role calls for a belter, and while Maria was good, she was no Laurie Beechman.  Laurie, may she rest in peace, originated the role in the mid-1980s Broadway run of Joseph, and simply astounded me the first time I saw her on stage.

So I read recently that Maria was coming out with her first CD. It didn't rank high on my list of discs to buy, and I soon forgot about the impending release.

The other night I was prowling around Barnes & Noble and saw the CD. So, off to the listening station I went. (What did we ever do before listening stations?)

Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

After listening to snippets of a couple of songs, onto my pile of purchases went Now and Then.

What can I say? First, Joseph clearly does not capture Ms. Friedman's singing abilities. Second, this is not like any collection put out by the dozens of Broadway divas who preceded Maria to the recording studio.

Again, not being a theater geek, most of what is on this album is not your typical stuff. Not your usual standards. The only recognizable song was "Broadway Baby." When I think of that song, I only hear Bernadette Peters' voice. No longer. She opens the album with a number called "I Like New York." Growing up in the NYC Metropolitan area as I did, I appreciated this song, even with its dis on Hackensack, New Jersey, the place in which my parents first met.

Beyond not having the typical standards, what really stuck me about this collection is the deliberateness of the performances. She seems to be really enjoying the music and the words and is in no hurry to get through them. I don't know if that makes sense.

Listen to it and see what you think.

First an iPod, now this.

An early adopter, I am not. I was not the first to buy a CD or DVD player, and I certainly did not own the first iPod (what an brilliant piece of technology, huh?).

Likewise, I am not the first to have a blog. But here I am.

Until recently, I had not even read a blog. I was on the phone with a friend the other day and he had me Google a film he had recently seen. I came across the blog of a reporter on GLBT issues for The Miami Herald. Exploring it, I found links to others.

Then there it was. Shades of Gray, written by a New Yorker named Ethan Gray. His writing is beautiful, the content intriguing, and the design engaging. I was inspired.

I write every day. Emails, memos, solicitation letters, proposals, cover letters for those proposals. The problem is that I'm never afforded the time to enjoy the process. And after 16 years in fundraising, it gets boring sometimes.

Like others, I've thought about writing for myself, for the sheer joy of it. But for some reason, I could never get into it. I needed an outlet, and couldn't be happy writing for writing's sake.

Now that I've decided to pursue this, my mind is flooded with ideas. The first entry that I wrote will actually be the third or fourth I post.

When I mentioned this project to a friend, he asked, "What are you going to write about?"

Good question.

It will include ramblings and musings about any number of things. Contemplations and commentary about things going on in the world. Introspection, retrospection and -- through the sheer act of posting -- a bit of exhibition.  About my life. It remains to be seen, of course, exactly how revealing I will get.

Then came the next question, this time from Jack. "Are you going to change the names to protect the innocent. Or the guilty?"

Hmmm...

After much deliberation, I've decided that it will depend on the person and the situation. If I'm relaying a personal story about an interaction with a friend, I will likely change the name. If I'm simply repeating a what someone says about a general topic, probably not. And those individuals in my life who are likely to come up frequently in this form will be assigned new names. For example, the abovementioned "Jack" has undergone a name change. (He's one of the guilty. And also has this bizarre penchant for changing people's names. Including mine. Often. Look for him to appear frequently.)

We'll see how this unfolds. How and where I find my voice. I'm doing this to sharpen my writing and my thinking. To hone my ability to observe the people, places, and things around me, to process what I see, and make sense of it.

Mind you, I'm under no illusions that anyone will want to read this stuff. But knowing that someone can, is inspiration enough.

If you've stuck with me this far, thank you.